Issued by: North West Communication Service
7 MARCH 1997
North West Premier, Popo Molefe opened the legislature today. In his opening speech, Molefe said despite the inadequacies of the old constitution, they had the pleasure that it afforded them the historic opportunity to achieve full democratisation of the political structu4res of governance to address strategic challenges of meeting the basic needs of the people and the implementaiton of the RDP in all its facets.
Molefe said they began the programme of 1997 confident that the RDP was firmly on track in the province as it is in the whole country.
He said 1996 was a year in which access to primary health care and social welfare services were expanded to provide much-needed relief to disadvantaged communities especially in the rural areas.
"Twenty five clinics were built or upgraded, 50 percent of public health facilities continued to dispense medicine and drugs free of charge to the poor, and R900 million was spent in the form of social security grants and pensions to the disabled and elderly.
"It was a year in which corruption in the civil service was dealt a significant blow when the diligent and honest public servants exposed 500 cases of fraudulent pension grants to fictitious claimants, the so-called ghost-pensioners. This salutary act of honesty has saved the taxpayer more than R2 million, a feat by any definition," he said.
He said the province had also assisted in the implementation of the major water supply projects worth R123 million in Moretele, Winterveldt and the rural areas, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people having access to safe and drinkable water.
Molfe said after two years of consultation, they had a national target of one million houses by the end of the year 2000. He added that provincially, 8000 housing units were built, 18 000 sites serviced and 50 000 subsidies approved.
CRIME PREVENTION
"The unity of our people has also been forged by a strange and unlikely factor: crime! We have been heartened by the fact that the National Crime Prevention Strategy is beginning to unite our people in the battle against the scourge of crime. Established business, community leaders and ordinary people have fearlessly stood up to be counted and have begun to strengthen community policing forums", he added.
PSC TRANSFORMATION
He said in view of the importance of an effective Public Service to give practical effect to the strategic focus areas, there was nothing as urgent and critical to the success of this year's development programme than to consolidate and accelerate transformation of the Public Service.
"Government has been at the forefront of implementing the White Paper on Transformation of Public Service. Some of the achievements to date are the establishment of institutional framework for the transformation process consisting of a Transformation Steering Committee which is unique in that it has membership of Executive Council and Heads of Departments. We are also establishing departmental transformation units in wall departments". Molefe said.
He said his government was currently implementing a pilot performance management system which will focus civil servants on outputs and results.
He added that they were embarking on an ambitious cost containment project and a project to decentralize services currently provided by the Provincial administration to the local government sphere.
HEALTH CARE AND WELFARE
He added that they had achieved major progress in the transformation of the health care approach. Molefe said his government would upgrade 205 clinics, build thirteen new ones near referral hospitals and provide and provide 36 mobile clinics to the rural areas.
He further said they still had a long way to go before they could completely integrate preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services and to achieve cost effectiveness and full community participation.
Molefe indicated that the payment of pensions and disability grants has been reviewed in order to render an efficient service to reduce chances of fraud.
"To this end, the government had taken the view that the whole system had to be contracted out this year. He further said that from April this year, an efficient system of payment would be introduced to curb long queues in pension payments", he concluded.